Alexander Fyodorovich Labzin (Александр Фёдорович Лабзин; 1766–1825) was a leading figure of the Russian Enlightenment who developed an idiosyncratic mystical system and founded an influential St. Petersburg masonic lodge, '' The Dying Sphinx''. His wife Anna Labzina was a noted memoirist. Labzin attended the

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

, where he came to know two leading Freemasons,

Ivan Schwarz Johann Georg Schwarz (Иван Григорьевич Шварц; 1751–1784) was a philosophy professor at Moscow University who headed the Russian branch of the Rosicrucian Society. A Transylvanian Saxon, Schwarz settled in Moscow in 1776. He ...

and Nikolay Novikov. He curried favour with Emperor Paul by preparing a historical account of the Order of Malta and held a string of offices during his reign and that of his son, including Chief of the Navy Department and Vice President of the Imperial Academy of Arts. He also had time to translate

Jakob Böhme Jakob Böhme (; ; 24 April 1575 – 17 November 1624) was a German philosopher, Christian mystic, and Lutheran Protestant theologian. He was considered an original thinker by many of his contemporaries within the Lutheran tradition, and his first ...

and Pierre Beaumarchais, as well as write his own poetry. Labzin revived the tradition of Novikov's "libertine" magazines with "The Messenger of Sion", a religious monthly that celebrated a "religion of the heart" and rebelled against the ritualistic side of Orthodox worship. The magazine was attacked by the church officials led by Archimandrite Photius and was discontinued. In 1822 he was exiled to

Simbirsk Ulyanovsk, known until 1924 as Simbirsk, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River east of Moscow. Population: The city, founded as Simbirsk (), w ...

for opposing Arakcheyev's election to the Academy of Arts. When told that Arakcheyev was "the nearest person to His Majesty", Labzin proposed to elect the Tsar's coachman instead "not only as being the nearest to the emperor, but having a seat before his majesty". He died in exile. Labzin's young protégés included Alexander Witberg, an architect who won the commission to construct in Moscow the

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour ( rus, Храм Христа́ Спаси́теля, r=Khram Khristá Spasítelya, p=xram xrʲɪˈsta spɐˈsʲitʲɪlʲə) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskv ...

but tsar Nicholas I abandoned the "Masonic" plan for a less "Roman Catholic" neo-Byzantine construction.Konstantin Akinsha, Grigorij Kozlov, Sylvia Hochfield. ''The Holy Place: Architecture, Ideology, and History in Russia''. Yale University Press, 2007. Page 30.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Labzin Russian Freemasons 1766 births 1825 deaths 18th-century Christian mystics 19th-century Christian mystics Eastern Orthodox mystics Male writers from the Russian Empire Poets from the Russian Empire Translators from the Russian Empire Moscow State University alumni Place of birth missing Russian male poets Russian Christian mystics